Will Sports World’s Wonders Never Cease?

Stuff I wouldn’t know and stuff I wouldn’t have thought of except I got lost on my way to looking up some other stuff:

* Give me a World Series in Wrigley Field and Fenway Park.

* No way Kobe Bryant gets convicted. At worst, he does the Michael Jackson thing. He sprinkles $15 million worth of vanishing powder on the accuser.

* That Thursday NFL season opener, when sideline reporter Lisa Guerrero said she was a “former soap opera vixen,” she neatly summarized her teevee assets.

* Another vixenish sideline reporter, Anna Kournikova, did her U.S. Open work with all the facility, wit and charm of a myopic Russian reading aloud the bottom lines of a Sanskrit eye chart.

* Oh, if only Charles Barkley lived in California. I’d pay to see Sir Charles back in on The Terminator.

* Manny Ramirez in the batter’s box: a face unclouded by thought.

* Nomar Garciaparra in the batter’s box: a computer running through its checklist of tics and twitches.

* The average life of a major league baseball is seven pitches. Fewer if Barry Bonds is at bat.

* For a year’s supply of NFL footballs, 2,500-3,000 cows are necessary. No word on cows and baseball gloves.

* The Pariah Palace has accepted reservations from Rick Neuheisel, Larry Eustachy, Mike Price, Nolan Richardson Jr. and Dave Bliss.

* The late movie director Alfred Hitchcock’s explanation of football: “The object of the game is to move the ball past the other team’s goal line. This counts as six points. No points are given for lacerations, contusions or abrasions, but then no points are deducted, either. Kicking is very important in football. In fact, some of the more enthusiastic players even kick the ball occasionally.”

* NFL Network is coming Nov. 4. It’s football every minute, every day, every week, every year. I’m reminded of football publicist Beano Cook’s line when American hostages returned from Iran and were given passes to major league baseball games. Quoth Beano, “Haven’t they suffered enough?”

* The raging Raider, Bill Romanowski, is everything right and wrong with football.

* Anybody still play mumblety-peg?

* Never seen an ugly woman in a baseball cap.

* A bowling pin need tilt only 7.5 degrees before it falls over.

* Journalist Gregg Easterbrook calls Washington’s NFL team “The Chesapeake Watershed Indigenous Persons.” Lots of syllables, and it’s hard to fit into headlines, but it’s better than what the team calls itself.

* At a rugby game in Alice Springs, Australia, players wrapped black tape around their heads, pulling it tight against the tops of their ears. Thus, a Kindred Rule of Life: Never play a game in which you need to tape your ears.

* Is anything more self-delusionary than paunchy bicyclists who ride country roads in aerodynamic uniforms and helmets?

* Beloit College’s “Mind-set List” of cultural references helps professors understand 18-year-olds. So: “Paul Newman has always made salad dressing.” “Pete Rose has always been a gambler.” “They have never heard Howard Cosell call a game on ABC.” I feel faint.

* Just when you think you know all the answers, they start asking new questions.

* Big-time college athletics, presented as amateur sports played by students, is the biggest lie this side of Saddam Hussein, military genius.

* Of all mysteries in the NFL, the greatest may be why pass receivers run 7-yard routes on third-and-9.

* The more I see of NFL defensive linemen, the more I think Aretha Franklin could play.

* One thing every American male knows: He can call better plays than his hometown NFL coach.

* That, and he can see the strike zone with greater precision from the upper deck than an umpire can from behind the catcher’s back.

* Comedian Mark Russell once said he was made uncomfortable by baseball players who asked for God’s help in games. If God really cared about baseball, Russell said, he’d have never created George Steinbrenner.

* I do not have an ATM card, do not know my cell phone’s number and have never been a member of any fantasy league. People stare at me.

* “Never complain,” former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda said. “Ninety-eight percent of people don’t care about your troubles, and the rest are glad you’ve got them.”

* When soccer hero David Beckham chose to wear jersey No. 23 for Real Madrid, he did it in honor of Michael Jordan’s 23. The number also was on Adam Sandler’s hockey helmet in Happy Gilmore. And it was Richard Nixon’s football jersey number in “Nixon.”